Ameriflight
- Thread starter flyinghedgehog
- Start date
av8tr1
"Never tell me the odds!"
Their hiring dept is just pure incompetence.
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It’s never been a training department. It’s a checking department.
av8tr1
"Never tell me the odds!"
I meant hiring not training but you must have responded before the edit.
The recruitment (hiring) department was completely turned over last year. They fired just about everyone in the department and started over. And it still didn't improve.
I'll be surprised if they are around 2 years from now. They can't staff their planes or routes. They keep lowering their mins to bring people in. Playing games with how they describe compensation and the ridiculous claims of "flow through agreements" with the bottom feeder airlines. What next? Free cars?
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I still think it’s hilarious that there are lifers there.
Nothing will ever change there, it can’t. It will die like the others because there’s literally nothing they can do. The business model is flawed and broken. They can’t afford to pay what it would take for people to sign up and stay there flying busted ass airplanes and a crappy schedule. Even though Gary Richads is gone, the mentality and culture will never die there. I still hear that the bully mentality by management is alive and well. That’s company suicide given how good the market is.
Nothing will ever change there, it can’t. It will die like the others because there’s literally nothing they can do. The business model is flawed and broken. They can’t afford to pay what it would take for people to sign up and stay there flying busted ass airplanes and a crappy schedule. Even though Gary Richads is gone, the mentality and culture will never die there. I still hear that the bully mentality by management is alive and well. That’s company suicide given how good the market is.
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What exactly are they supposed to do though? It’s a tough sell, especially for this generation of pilots, to fly busted ass freight when the regionals are offering so much more with vacuum flush toilets as @Derg would say.
As many on this site know I will forever cherish my time flying 135 freight. Airnet was a whole different animals though, however that business will never exist again.
I was just speaking with my captain last night about this, he’s former CASW. It’s sad that you can’t build a foundation of experience as a freight dawg anymore.
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AMF has done nothing to stay relevant. The freight days are over for career track pilots. You can go fly cargo for USA Jet or something like that but even that isn’t the same as the clearinghouse days. AMF has built it business on telling pilots what they should want, instead of putting their finger on the pulse of the industry. It’s just not gonna work anymore, and if they do manage to coax people in, they aren’t keeping them.
If you were CEO for a day what would you do differently? I just don’t think they’d ever be able to attract pilots in this environment. It’s not just money.
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Well that’s what I meant with my post above, the business model is flawed, and that part of the industry is flawed. They need to diversify the business model if they wanna stay alive. Never mind keeping pilots, I just don’t think the road they are going down is survivable. I would into different aircraft, and probably break into the larger hauling stuff. How they didn’t jump on to be the first RJ freight operator is mind boggling.
You’re talking about a complete mindset shift though, presidents and chief pilots have come and gone because they have tried to change the ingrained culture. It’s impossible to change it, it won’t happen. The mx is still poor, the planes are disgusting, I mean I am not sure where you will find more dilapidated, dirty, worn out airplanes than at AMF. Combine that with the companies relevance to getting hired somewhere other than a regional, ambo, or 135 charter, you really have no options to attract pilots. Bonuses are great and all but everyone who takes a job there to get a bonus because they were told PIC is king, skipped out on a seniority number at a regional.
AMF made us great steam gauge /A pilots in hand flown airplanes, and in glad I experienced it, but 99/100 people had to get hired somewhere else before they could get a decent job. Most that swore off the regionals because “SWA loves AMF pilots” are now at regionals lol.
A150K
Well-Known Member
They still have the contract...errr at least part of it. The number of Chieftain runs out of ABQ is down to only like 1 or 2, so they only keep about 4 or 5 current anymore and the rest are awaiting their turn for the chopping block.
As someone doing the same type of flying, but for another company, it seems like the issues are similar for all of these pt 135 night freight companies. The pay raises have been nice, but the most common complaint I hear from others is the schedule. They need to hire more pilots and start some sort of rotation like Mountain Air is currently doing. 5 on 2 off week after week sucks.
What rotation does MAC have?
Looks like it's just on the ATR. Saw a thread in the employment section about it.
Mostly non-sequitur:
Here's some advice that some of you will get, some of you won't. But it's something I learned that's really enrichened my world:
"These are the good old days".
When I fly with a former Skyway copilot, we go on for days about how awesome it was. When I was at Skyway, we'd go on and on about the freedom and oft-recklessness of being a CFI. As a CFI, well, you get the point.
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MAGA
But the "great" era that some want to MAGA us back to wasn't G for all of A whatsoever.
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Yea, I have no reply to MAGA other than I hate that acronym and anyone who uses it seriously should probably be wearing a helmet and riding the little bus to school.
I think we often cloud being excited about the journey, then once we have arrived at what we think are more career driven jobs, our focus changes. When I first got to AMF I was so excited to be getting good time in my logbook. I didn’t care about pay, retirement or good sleep yet. I think being hungry to progress and the good old days of hand in hand. Going to a regional right now isn’t the same flying as going to AMF or some other freight outfit but I would have rather had the oppertunities new pilots have now, than being treated the way I was in 2010. In some ways it’s the good old days, in some ways it’s not, either way I wouldn’t want to live it again.
I think we often cloud being excited about the journey, then once we have arrived at what we think are more career driven jobs, our focus changes. When I first got to AMF I was so excited to be getting good time in my logbook. I didn’t care about pay, retirement or good sleep yet. I think being hungry to progress and the good old days of hand in hand. Going to a regional right now isn’t the same flying as going to AMF or some other freight outfit but I would have rather had the oppertunities new pilots have now, than being treated the way I was in 2010. In some ways it’s the good old days, in some ways it’s not, either way I wouldn’t want to live it again.
Itchy
Well-Known Member
The (135 freight) industry needs to hire enough people to have a decent QOL, with usable time off that would let a family person enjoy their family. The only way that will happen is to raise the bar in pay to attract pilots who would otherwise be dilligaf, and fill the roster. This will only get more interesting as time moves on. Glad I'm no longer a part of it though.
Beep
Well-Known Member
That carries over to the rest of the 135 industry as well.